Non Scholae Sed Vitae
by Daisy If You Have
Summary: My take on the ever-popular college AU. Non-powered AU. Mina hatches a plan to get a date for her friend and near-sister Haruka when she finds out she has a crush on the distant rich girl Michiru Kaioh. It was all fun and games until Haruka fell in love. Can Michiru break out of the life that's been designed for her, all she's ever known, and find true happiness?
1. Just One Night

"Now that I've done you a favor, using my slummy, poor-person connections you obviously think I have" She reached across the desk and grabbed Michiru's forearm. "By the by, I got it from one of the senior princesses in the fancy dorm hall. You think poor people can afford coke? You're a senior at an Ivy League school, use your fucking head."

Michiru slipped the bag into her backpack and handed over a surfeit of bills, not making eye contact with Mina, looking down at the French text she was meant to be tutoring on.

Mina pushed back the pile of money. "You think you can tip me? No, mon petit chou, I ran coke for you, you owe me."

Michiru snapped at her. 'And what, precisely, did you have in mind?"

Mina doodled at the edge of her notebook. "You know that girl I live with? I've told you about her. She works for a contractor on the weekends, and he's taking everyone out for a little end of season dinner. The guys all tease her about never having a date. So I thought you could go with her, pretend to be her date, make her feel good in front of the guys."

"Me?" The surprise in her voice was genuine.

"Listen, you're not my first choice either, Duchess, but she thinks you're pretty and I'm sure all the idiots she works with will be duly impressed." She wrote out a sentence in French in her notebook exhorting the virtues of cheese.

But Michiru was paying her work no attention now. "How does she even know what I look like? I don't believe I've ever seen her."

Mina did not look up from her textbook. "She works here at the school. On the not-weekends."

Michiru nodded. "It's a shame how little TAs are paid." She thought for a moment. "And adjuncts, I suppose. What does she teach? I admit I hardly ever leave the comfort of music and languages, and the campus is so large—"

"She doesn't teach here. There's a whole secret underground of people that do things other than teach here." Mina gestured wildly, annoyed. She tossed her hair back. "She works in maintenance."

"You intend for me to go on a date with a janitor."

"I intend for you to stop being a stuck up bitch for one night in your life, and do something nice for someone who's helped me a lot. " She stood up, gathering up her books. "And, I don't want to belabor the point, but I'm about to, I RAN COKE FOR YOU. You can stand to rub shoulders with a prole for one night. Or," She smiled brightly, "I can tell the dean of students," she began to cry softly and slumped back into the chair. "I didn't want to, but she told me if I didn't do it, she wouldn't help me with French anymore…and my scholarship pays for my books, and I just didn't know what to do! I feel so guilty!"

"You wouldn't."

"I already told the girl I got it from that you made me, and I dropped to French teacher that without your tutoring, I'd be totally lost, so, I've established backstory." She smiled, tilting her head to one side.

"Well then, I suppose I should ask the name of my captor." She scowled.

"My name's Mina, you've been tutoring me all semester. Are they gonna let you graduate?"

Michiru growled under her breath. "Not you. The janitor."

"Oh, oh. Haruka. And she doesn't know I'm blackmailing you, I just said I'd ask if you'd go with her. Wear something pretty."

* * *

She heard a knock at the door and finished the last of her glass of wine, rolling her eyes as she went to the door, unsure of what would be behind it. What would her family think, her friends, if they knew that she was going to be seen with someone who likely thought completing a comics crossword puzzle was the height of brilliance? She opened it slowly, looking up from the floor. The girl in front of her was tall and lean, a collared shirt tucked under a cheap cotton cardigan, but clean. Her sandy blonde hair was cut short, and just brushed her eyebrow. Michiru was almost offended by how handsome she was.

The girl pushed a drugstore bouquet of flowers toward into her hands. "I got you these." There was a teal ribbon tied around them. "Mina said she thought your favorite color was teal, but, there's no teal flowers, so, I just."

Michiru took them from her hands. "I suppose I should put these in some water." She walked into her apartment, Haruka following behind, gaping at the large loft.

"This a great apartment." She touched the granite countertop. "Where are your roommates, out for the night?"

Michiru filled up a crystal vase and placed the collection of daisies and sunflowers inside. "I don't have any roommates. The other bedroom is my studio."

"Ah. You uh, you look very pretty."

Michiru rinsed off her hands. "Thank you, it's Dior casual 2010." She turned around to face Haruka. "Shall we go?"

* * *

There was a whoop as Haruka opened the door for Michiru at the pub, and followed in behind her.

"Haruka, you reeled one in!"

"How much did you pay her?"

"Ma'am anyone told you you're too good for this ugly cuss?"

Haruka smiled over at her. "And these are my charming friends." She cautiously touched her elbow as she introduced her to the group. "Michiru, this is Tom, Mike, Brady, Joaquim, and my boss, Craig. Everyone, this is Michiru."

Michiru took her hand, remembering her role tonight as girlfriend, and felt Haruka's palm grow hot. "It's so wonderful to meet all of you, truly." She gave her best fake smile.

But as the night wore on, she could not help but notice her smile grow less fake. Haruka's hands were rough and scarred, but there was a gentleness in the way she spoke pidgin Spanish to her friend's wife, who seemed nervous. She was kind to the waitress, and gathered up the plates in the middle of the table when they'd finished. She asked for a piece of cake to be boxed up to bring home to Mina.

And she eased Michiru's awkwardness when she realized that she was the one who was odd, here. She snapped at Tom when he teased Michiru for studying things normal people didn't care about, declaring that they may build the buildings, but someone's got to fill them with stuff people want to see, or they'll all be out a job. And Michiru, much to her hatred and dismay, found herself feeling true affection very quickly for this girl. She tried to remember her station. She tried to remember the look on her friends' faces. She tried to remember the admonitions of her parents.

But all she could think about was the feel of Haruka's trembling hand on her knee.

* * *

They sat there on the edge of the bridge, the path behind them stiller than Michiru had ever seen in the city. The several drinks she'd had brought a flush to her face, and adventurousness to her soul that she had never known.

She turned to Haruka, who sat staring at the rails below. "I'm surprised you can get out here, that they've never repaired that gate."

Haruka laughed and stretched her arms behind her. "Well, this is the poor end of town, Princess. They don't really care if we throw ourselves in front of a train." She looked over at Michiru who sat silent. "I was just teasing. You're not like that."

Michiru smiled weakly. No, she was sure she had been, from time to time. "If they're going to die they'd better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

"A Christmas Carol."

Her smile was genuine now. "Dickens?"

"The Muppets."

Michiru laughed, and the train passed underneath them, shaking the bridge. Her shoulder was suddenly warm under Haruka's hand, a protective arm across her back, pulling her gently toward the gate and away from the edge. Haruka's eyes were closed as the train passed, the gust of air blowing her hair about her face, the dim lights from the train illuminating the very edges of her features.

Michiru did not think she had ever seen anything quite so beautiful.

"Mina tells me you both grew up here." She took advantage of the silence left by the train's escape into the night, and Haruka nervously withdrew her hand.

Haruka nodded. "Yup. She lived a few doors down. Neither one of us came from, I mean, things weren't—anyway, when I scraped up enough to leave I took her with me. And made her work hard at school." She shrugged. "One of us has gotta be smart."

She placed her hand on Haruka's. "Don't tear yourself down. You're a very noble soul."

Haruka was suddenly happy for the dark, as she felt the blood rise to her face. She pulled the collar of her sweater around her face and quickly changed the subject. "I guess this isn't the kind of date you're used to. I bet girls take you all sorts of fancy places."

"They lack your creativity. They only know how to throw money at a problem." The voice sounded more bitter than she had intended, but she did not apologize for it. Her entire life had been decided for her from the day she was born. She would study music. She would go to an Ivy. She would be beautiful and poised in all things. But as she sat here with this girl—this hard-working, rough, uneducated, absolutely perfect girl—she knew there was one thing she wanted to decide for herself.

Below them, the train rumbled on the track it had always followed.


	2. One Night Stand

The night came to a close, the soft and mystifying buzz of the wine that had made a million promises to herself possible no longer holding sway. Haruka walked her to the door of her apartment, and delicately touched her on the shoulder. "Michiru, I had a really good time. I know it's not your usual thing, but I hope you did too. I appreciate all you've done for Mina, helping her with French."

The words that came out of her mouth were more familiar than desired. "It's no matter at all, Haruka, it's very common in my circles to help the less fortunate." She unlocked the door, but kept looking at Haruka. She was beneath her, admittedly, but also there was nothing else she'd rather see but Haruka, beneath her. And in any case she was sure Mina would require her to have sealed the deal to keep her secret.

"Would you like to come inside for a cup of coffee?" Her voice was honeyed and rich, smooth as a piece of tiramisu, and Haruka could not resist, despite the lateness of the hour.

Haruka sat down at the granite countertop as Michiru started up the coffee maker, gleaming silver in the light of the kitchen. Haruka was glad Michiru had started it up—she wasn't sure she'd be able to run the damn thing without a manual.

"Do you prefer macchiato, espresso, or..?" Michiru looked at her, studied.

"I usually just have milk and sugar."

"I can make you a simple latte, if you'd like." She started up the machine without waiting for a response.

Haruka leaned forward onto the counter, nervous in this apartment that was so dark and huge and smelled of money and disappointment. "That's a fancy machine."

"Oh? Yes, it's a Jura Giga, I think." She took away the latte from the machine. "An ex-girlfriend gave it to me for Valentine's Day one year. It has lasted rather well, my relationship with her could have used the same warranty." She set the drink down in front of Haruka, who picked it up gratefully, slurping it down.

Michiru gave a small huffing chuckle. "I suppose you'd prefer some Hershey's syrup in that, never mind that it's fine Ethiopian blend."

"Do you have some?" Haruka looked hopeful. "The school cafe usually makes me the chocolate ones. Linda behind the counter is real nice, do you know her?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't." Michiru had never asked a single staff member's name that wasn't responsible for giving her a grade.

"Sometimes on Fridays she'll throw me a free cookie, cause they have to toss them before the weekend anyhow and I like to dip them in my coffee. I mop the floor for her even though it's technically her thing, you know, but she's got a real bad back so I try to help out."

Michiru sighed. "Haruka, I am not interested in your job or its doubtless fascinating cast of characters. But I am interested in, however…"

Michiru kissed her aggressively, and began unbuttoning Haruka's shirt, pulling her cardigan off her body. Haruka stopped for a moment, seemingly surprised, and then pulled away.

"Michiru, I—I don't do these kinds of things." She gently pulled the cardigan back on her shoulder. "Mina always makes fun of me, but—"

Michiru straightened back up. She had no idea how to take being rejected by the janitor. She smoothed her hair, tucking it behind one ear as she walked over to the counter and opened the cabinet wordlessly.

Haruka shifted uncomfortably. "You're really pretty, and I like you, and so—"

Michiru took a small bag out of the cabinet and began to cut a line out on the granite counter. "You don't even know me. Do you want some?"

"No, no." Her voice was gently scolding, like a kindergarten teacher, and she quickly got up off of the stool and went over to Michiru, putting her hands on her shoulders. "You shouldn't do that, it's bad for you."

She turned to face Haruka. "Everyone does it. It's just a way to get through our endlessly dull lives, similar to how your people eat McDonald's and watch reality television."

But Haruka ignored her cutting remark and held her tight, almost in desperation. "You know what I do when I'm bored? I make a grilled cheese sandwich and see what's on TV. Can I make you a grilled cheese? What do you like to watch? Do you like basketball? I like basketball."

Michiru pulled away, a disgusted expression on her face. "You don't care for me, but you expect me to let you run my life for a grilled cheese sandwich and a ball game."

"Who said I didn't care?" Haruka thought for a moment. She was never particularly good at reading people, but she tried, and a curious answer came to her. "Is this because I didn't want to sleep with you?"

Michiru turned back to her line of cocaine. "I have everything, Haruka, I don't need your pity in order to complete some sort of collection of oddities. You may go. I'll give you money for a cab or what have you."

Haruka turned her back around. "Michiru, why are you being like this?" She took both of Michiru's hands. "I like you. I want to get to know you. I'm just sort of…I don't know, an old romantic. How can I get to know you if you hurt yourself with that shit?"

"You're a very curious woman, Haruka."

Haruka laughed and tossed her hair to the side, blushing a little. "I know, a wrong side of the tracks kind of gal like me, the way I look, all butch and all…I know you think that's a kind of person who wouldn't want to wait, but, I'm a big girl about these things. Everyone teases me. But whatever, it's my life, right?" She chuckled. "But then pretty girls like you think I don't like them, so maybe it's more of a problem than I think." She touched Michiru's cheek. "But I love the way a girl feels in my arms, and dancing with her, I'd love to take you dancing, the little old man who ran the carnecería down the block taught me to tango, well, kind of. But.." She ran her hand through Michiru's hair. "I just like the slow romance of things. I like to linger. I like to think about what you wear and what you smell like, and I like to get excited about kissing you and dream about you, and, just everything, piece by piece." She blushed again, redder now, and pulled her hand away. "I don't have cable, what else am I supposed to do?"

Michiru looked up at her. "I don't suppose the offer of that grilled cheese is still on the table?"

Haruka smiled brightly. "I'm just warning you, you'll be ruined for the rest of your life. Do you have mayonnaise?"

* * *

Haruka fell asleep on her couch that night, arms still around Michiru, who looked out at the lights of the city and wondered when the last time was that someone had simply held her for no reason at all.

She frowned deeply as she lay against the softly sighing butch. "I don't understand you at all."

The next morning, as Haruka rushed out, she quietly asked Michiru if she could kiss her, a soft, warm gentle touch of her lips, soft as rosebuds despite the hardness of the rest of her.

Michiru had spent many years being pursued, but looking back at the teal-ribboned bouquet, she felt courted.


	3. A Waste of Paint

Time passed quickly, in the way it often does for the young, and in a few weeks Michiru found the struggle within her even greater still. Haruka was everything she had never longed for. She was rough and unpracticed and did not know the dance that she had learned from birth, of society and parties and behavior.

And yet, there was a brightness in her, some small spark that threatened to catch Michiru like tinder, to blow in her like a wildfire, and Michiru struggled to keep it at bay.

To be besotted was terribly unbecoming, and she would not promise this girl something she could not give.

All these thoughts floated through her head like errant clouds as Haruka studied her paintings closely in her apartment studio.

"This is so sad. Lonely." She gently touched the thin, dark lines, a frown on her face, and looked up at Michiru. "Why is it so sad?"

Michiru didn't know what to say for a moment. No one had ever asked her that. People asked her about her muse, her influences, her choice of color. But no one had ever simply asked her why her work was sad.

"I think it draws upon the universal feeling of yearning, of the inescapable sadness of desire." A practiced line came out of her mouth.

Haruka shook her head. "No."

But she did not press the issue, simply looked around Michiru's studio, touching her brushes and paintings, telling her what she liked about each one. She loved the one Michiru never brought to a gallery, the one of the goldfish elegantly swimming in a deep pool. Too representational. Too passe. It had been a dalliance for Michiru, something to paint because she had dreamed it, the fins of the goldfish flowing like organza in her mind.

"I like the way you can tell they're swimming even though it's a picture." Her grin was crooked and filled with warmth. "That takes a lot of talent. You're really good."

"I don't imagine you to be a scholar of the arts."

"Sure am not! But I like it anyway, I like to go to the museum on free days and look at the stuff." She continued across the studio, bigger, she told Michiru, than her bedroom at home. Her hands stopped on a tube of bright mustard paint. "You never use this color." She looked around at the paintings.

"True." Michiru sauntered toward her. "It is a waste of paint in my hands. That, and the vermillion, and the persimmon, and the primrose yellow."

"Naw." Haruka put a dab of the mustard on her finger and playfully transferred it to Michiru's nose. "See? Looks great on you."

Michiru was confused for a moment by the gesture. Women brought her lavish rose bouquets, though she preferred lilies, and took her to haute cuisine dinners and kissed her hand and recited poetry. They did not, as a rule, smear paint on her nose like she was a preschool child. But looking at her crooked smile, the line of her jaw in the dimming sun, the sparkle in her eyes that had never been tamed by propriety and training, suddenly she felt like straining against the lead she had tethered to all of her life.

She picked up the vermillion, smiled slyly with a rare freedom, pulled up Haruka's shirt, and smeared it on her stomach.

* * *

They lay in her bed, paint covering Michiru's fine sheets, smoke from their cigarettes curling in the air. Michiru was exhausted by Haruka's strength and power, coupled with her desire to please and eagerness to obey, her inability to tire. It was like having a border collie in bed with her, and it was more pleasant than any bump of cocaine, and much longer lasting. She knew she would crave it again.

She sat up on one elbow and looked over at Haruka. "How is it that you and Mina found each other?"

Haruka toyed with a bruise under her thumbnail. "The gal who owned the bodega down the way always teased me about picking up Mina because I wanted a pet." She laughed. "But she was so little. We both were, I guess. I used to play with her when our folks weren't around. Which was a lot." She sat up and ruffled her hair, then leaned back on her palms. "I started walking her to school when she was in kindergarten, and made her do her homework. I was never very smart, but Mina, she was always real bright. I made her pay attention. She had a lot of potential. I was good at odd jobs, and we shared dinners some, she was only a few doors down."

Michiru stared at her as she told the story of her inauspicious youth. Her driver had taken her to her private school every day from the age of 5 to 18, she had private tutors for any subject she desired, even those not offered in the school, but she could not speak of her school days with any sort of happiness or nostalgia. It felt more like training, building her to be the girl she needed to be, the perfect ornamental creature that some young captain of industry would take into her family. They had already introduced her to some girl they obviously intended for her to marry. She was nice enough. A Gray. But Michiru felt nothing. Until she met Haruka, she hadn't realized you were supposed to.

Haruka continued. "I got tired of the…situation at home. So I dropped out when I was 16."

Michiru looked horrified. "You dropped out of high school?"

"I have my GED. I don't need to know about Shakespeare or whatever to mop floors and tear down sheetrock." She shrugged. "Craig hired me to clean up the sites he was working on—I was too young to do any of the good paying work. I saved up, turned 18, applied for legal guardianship of Mina." At this she puffed out her chest and turned her head to Michiru, her bangs flopping playfully to one side. "And I will have you know that I went to the library and studied the law myself on abandonment and guardianship and all that shit, and the librarian helped me, and I didn't even hire a lawyer, I learned to read all of it myself. So, who needs your fancy college, even?" She shoved Michiru teasingly, who smiled brighter than she remembered how and linked her arms around Haruka.

"Clearly not you, you natural born barrister."

"Anyhow, contract work pays pretty good, so I got us a little apartment on the edge of the school district that had this whole fancy magnet program. I told Mina she had til my body wears out from physical labor to get us in good order." She laughed again, a low, cheerful chuckle of which Michiru was rapidly growing very fond.

She couldn't imagine Haruka's fine, strong body ever wearing out, but she could imagine several other things that it could be doing. It was a battle between curiousity and libido, now, in Michiru's head.

"Why, then, do you work as a janitor? To keep an eye on Mina?" Curiousity, it seemed, would win the day.

Haruka's eyes lit up. "Because, genius painter musician millionaire girl." She kissed Michiru on the nose. "Tuition is free for full-time employees' kids or fake kids or whatever. So I just weekend with Craig. Make money."

Michiru looked off into the dark of the apartment. "I have never known anyone like you, ever."

"I mean, it's not as impressive as all this." She indicated to the walls surrounding them. "It's a little life, but it's mine. No one can take it away from me."

"I think it sounds wonderful." She looked back up at Haruka. "It sounds free."

"Well, as my rent check will tell you, it is not free."

Michiru giggled and buried her face into Haruka's chest. "I've known people who wouldn't give up their spot on the country club waiting list for another person, much less their entire future."

"I didn't give up my future." Her voice reverberated through her chest. "I just brought Mina along with."

Michiru kissed her, hard. There was a passion in her now, a passion that lasted even when Haruka left that morning, a passion that drove her to her studio, to grab the red and oranges and yellows and dance them across the canvas. The lines were thick and strong and held none of the inconsequential mewling sadness of her earlier work, they were a secret garden that she had never known before. They were bright rays of sunlight jumping over the wall of her heart. They were a star in the velvet jewelbox of her own personal night, one only she could see.

They were Haruka.


	4. Salon at the Rue des Moulins

Mina did not like this, not one bit. Michiru Kaioh was a snake in the grass, and poor Haruka was a field mouse, not even knowing she was in danger. It was her fault, at least a little, she supposed. But she had never meant for it to go so far. I was supposed to be one night out with a pretty girl, because Haruka rarely had time to date and she wanted her to feel good in front of her friends. That was all. It was supposed to be a tiny gift.

And now this. Haruka was all heart-eyes and love poems over Michiru, describing in intricate and annoying detail to Mina about the quality of her voice, the softness of her sheets, the way her hair smells. She had set Haruka up for failure and the longer she let it go on, the worse it would get. She scowled at the newspaper as she sat in the student lounge, sipping a French Roast. Free Wifi. Free refills. Free paper. She spent a lot of time here.

Haruka's problem, she reasoned, was that she believed in people, whether it was deserved or not. _Michiru's just shy and reserved, Mina, I bet she got her heart broken._ She'd have to have a heart for that to be true. _It's nice how the kids here like the tuition program!_ Yeah, they definitely tell me, 'it's just so wonderful that maintenance staff families can find a way into this school' to make me feel good. _No, see, it's only a year old, but his grandma gave him a new laptop. He sold it to me so cheap because he wants you to do well in school. I bought it for you._ Haruka, no.

She sighed heavily and looked back down at the paper, her eyes scanning, her mind more on the issue at hand than anything she was reading. How could she possibly make Haruka see? Her eyes stopped on an announcement, and she smiled.

Maybe she could make the truth out itself. If Haruka could come to the realization herself, maybe the fall would feel gentler.

Haruka looked nervously at the ad Mina presented. "I don't know if I can afford that, kiddo."

Mia set down a bowl of chicken with noodles in front of her. "Sure you can! It's expensive to BUY art, Haruka, it's not expensive to see it." She sat down next to her at the small table tucked in the corner. "These gallery showings are always free, and this gallery is huge. They usually have wine, snacks, and all of it is free. And Michiru loves art, you told me all about her studio and everything, I bet she'd love to go to this with you."

Haruka turned it over in her hand. "She did show me a table book about art the other day. Trying to teach me.""

"See? Show her what you've learned. I mean, how long has it been since you took her on a real date?" She piled some of the sauce and noodles onto a piece of toasted white bread.

Haruka blushed. "Not since the first time we went out." She picked at her meal. "She hasn't said anything though. Trying to be nice, I guess."

"Be the dashing girlfriend. Take her out. Live a little." Mina's words were strong, but the shame and guilt rose up in her like a creeping wave. Michiru would never take her out. Particularly, there, where she would know someone. She reminded herself that she was being cruel to be kind.

"I'd have to take my nice clothes to work and shower there….but, yeah, I guess, she'd like that, huh?"

"Of course!"

* * *

Haruka was happily dipping the naan bread into the takeout container, watching the French movie about BDSM relationship between a nobleman and a flower girl who studies butterflies set against a changing political climate in the 1700s. Michiru would have thought that the allusions to socialism as outlaid by the lighting during the nipple-clamping scene would have been beyond Haruka, but if it was, she made no mention of it, simply watched the movie and smiled over at Michiru every so often.

That smile. Bright and honest, her eyes crinkling up at the corners with the enthusiasm of it. Her mother would never have allowed her to smile like that. 'You'll wrinkle,' she would say. 'Smile like a lady.' And so she did learn how to smile like a lady, but she could not deny she preferred to live in the light of Haruka's unrestrained grin.

She laid down her food and moved across the couch toward Haruka, who settled in on the back of the couch and stretched herself out, patting her chest for Michiru as if she were calling for a dog to climb into her lap. Michiru obligingly lay her head there, Haruka's arms circled around her, her hand absent-mindedly stroking her hair. Michiru closed her eyes and simply listened, the instruments of her apartment blending together in perfect concert: The French patter in the background, each of Haruka's deep, slow breaths, her steady heartbeat the metronome to a perfect moment.

Haruka was beautiful. In every way it was possible for a human to be beautiful. Michiru had never met a single solitary soul like her, and relished in the joy of her presence, her handsomeness, her kindness, her eagerness when they slipped between her sheets. It was like a stolen painting, smuggled from a museum, hidden in her cigar room where only she could look at it, somehow more beautiful for that, for all the secrecy.

She was Michiru's objet d'art.

"Hey." Haruka looked down at her. "I had an idea."

"Whatever might that be?" She pushed herself up and looked into Haruka's eyes, only catching a quick glimpse of the bedroom over her shoulder, a predatory smile crossing her lips.

"There's this gallery showing next week, and I want to take you. I know you like that stuff, and it's right close so we could just walk over, even." She looked at Michiru's speechless face. "I mean of course I wouldn't come in my coveralls, I'd bring clothes and shower but it won't take me very long. Mina said it should be nice."

"Ah." Michiru sat up. She was familiar with the gallery, the Toranis ran the place, she actually knew one of the artists presenting. It was bound to be a large show, with many attendants…She looked back at Haruka, quickly. She could only imagine what they would say if she showed up with the janitor, in her Kmart sweater and her Cost Cutters haircut, it would be a miracle if the entire place didn't simply explode into laughter. She thought about her speaking with the artists, the roughness of her untrained tongue over each artist's name as she tried to compare a clear Expressionist to Toulouse-Lautrec. 'Tuh-lose.' Ugh. She cringed, imagining her parents' faces, their chiding at her choice of companion.

She gave her flat smile. "Oh, those sort of things rather exhaust me, Haruka. I would rather not. Also," she touched Haruka's stomach, "I can think of many better ways to spend an evening with you."

Haruka shifted uncomfortably. "I just wanted to take you on a date, you know. You're a special girl, and I don't really—"

Michiru shook her head. "Haruka, really, that's so unnecessary. This is far more intimate anyhow."

"It's important to me though." Haruka looked hopefully over at Michiru.

Michiru looked down at the floor, mind racing. "Perhaps we could go to a small, secluded café? I hear there's a nice Cuban place over by LaMont and 26th."

Haruka thought for a moment. "Oh wow, it'll take us like an hour to get across town."

Michiru nodded. "Less crowds."

Haruka sat up and put her hand on Michiru's knee. "You artists are so sensitive. Tell you what. How about you come over to my place and I'll make dinner? I'll even come pick you up so you don't have to take the train alone."

"Oh, nonsense, I'll have my parent's driver take me." They already knew she had a charity case down on the south side, so there would not even be a need for deception. "That sounds lovely."


	5. The Secret Garden

Haruka looked at their small apartment, biting her bottom lip and scratching behind her ear. She had never realized how tiny the apartment was until now, and all the moving furniture in the world wasn't going to change that. She had set the small table that usually lived in a corner into the middle of the room, the two mismatched chairs at least stained the same color as the table, a labor of love Haruka had committed when they first moved out there. The things they owned would never be expensive, but they could be nice.

She had scrubbed the apartment with gusto, and it smelled freshly of lemons and oranges, her sheets freshly laundered ad her room neat as a pin, just in case. It was the first time Michiru would be coming over to her apartment, and though she knew it wasn't impressive like Michiru's, she wanted her to at least think it was clean and well-kept.

She sighed and decided to admit defeat. She had done the best she could, and the steaks she had skipped lunches for needed to be prepped—Mina's lab fees on top of her books had thrown a wrench into Haruka's already tight budget, made more complicated by the fact that she didn't want Mina to know, exactly, how tight her money clip was. They had already gotten into a fight once about Mina getting a job. So far as Haruka was concerned, it was Mina's job to get into the medical school that Haruka couldn't pay for.

But that was a problem for a different day. Right now, she had things to do. She had done as much ahead as she could, Mina helping her with the finer points of kitchen prep, having been the one who cooked meals for them most nights. She was excited. She was nervous.

She needed to put on some deodorant.

She strolled into the small bathroom, pulling the rug over the cracked tile and pulling the hair gel off the small shelf. She teased her hair sideways, hoping that the effect was windswept but together, giving a sense of movement without looking like some floppy dog. Michiru, of course, never had to work like this, she thought, pulling the deodorant from the cabinet. She was simply beautiful, even when she woke up. Haruka had proof of that now.

She crossed the hallway to her bedroom, the shirt ironed and laid out on the bed with her slacks, a tie she had found at the thrift store and thought striking lay out with the outfit. Butterflies filled her stomach as she buttoned the collared cotton shirt up to her neck. It was a little silly to be so nervous, she supposed, but she wanted to make this like a real date. She and Michiru hadn't been out together since that first night, mostly staying in her apartment and watching movies or talking—Michiru was so considerate, Haruka thought, worried her feelings would be hurt because Haruka couldn't afford nice dates.

She pulled the new vest out of the TopShop bag. Well, tonight she would show her that even if she didn't have a lot of money, Haruka could make a nice night out for the two of them. The vest fit decently, she supposed, cinching it in a bit at the waist. She'd always been skinny, despite her best efforts to bulk up a bit. She stared in the mirror as she listened to the Youtube video helping her tie a Windsor knot, carefully following the instructions until she was finally pleased with the result. She grinned in the mirror. She was rather handsome tonight. Michiru would be impressed, even if she tried to hide it.

A knock came at the door, and Haruka hurried to it, making one last look across the apartment to make sure it was ready. She swung wide the door, extending her arm.

"Welcome to Chez Haruka!"

Michiru looked her up and down. It would be truly remarkable to see how Haruka looked in a well-fitted suit, if she could carry cheap rack polyester this well. "Thank you for having me over." She stepped through the door and set her bag on the counter, only a few steps in the door. She appraised the apartment as Haruka looked on. The whole thing was painted a dark cream, as if anyone had expected that white could only hope to be tarnished. A small counter fenced the range and sink off from the rest of the apartment, bordering a living room no bigger than her studio back home. Perhaps smaller. The carpet was dingy, but smelled fresh. The furniture was mismatched and patched in places, a few nicer pieces of wood seeming out of place with the overall cheapness of the design.

Michiru broke from her judgment to see Haruka standing behind her, rubbing her back of her hand with her thumb. "I know it's not much to look at, but it's near the train and the neighborhood's pretty good. I wanted Mina to go the magnet school near here."

"Oh, it's perfectly fine, Haruka. A very cozy little place." Her eyes followed to the thin cabinet at the living room wall. "What an unusual piece of furniture."

Haruka strolled over to show it to her. "It's a Murphy bed. Mina painted it to look like a cabinet. Neat, huh?" Michiru looked at her, and she shrugged. "One bedroom, gotta figure it out somehow."

"Why not just get a bigger apartment, if there are two of you?"

Haruka laughed for a minute, not catching the seriousness in Michiru's face. "Sure, I'd love to. Thinking about Trump Tower."

Michiru shook her head. "I'm sure you just haven't looked hard enough." But she walked over to the table, where Haruka had set two places, and sat down.

Haruka turned on the radio as the meal settled in their bellies, an old station playing soft, slow music. She walked over to Michiru's side, and bowed deeply.

"May I have this dance?"

Michiru looked around, not sure of where, exactly, they were going to go, but the plonk Haruka had selected was going to her head, and it suddenly mattered less where they went as long as she got to enjoy the rich texture of Haruka's strong shoulders under her hand.

Haruka was a wonder to her. There was a gentleness that belied her looks, she touched Michiru so softly as they swayed in the living room, the scars and callouses on her hands less and less noticeable as Michiru's own melted into her warmth. She felt herself draw closer to Haruka, the smell of the wine on both of their breaths, and kissed her, the taste of her mixed with wine and meat and need.

Haruka dipped her slowly, and rose her back to her feet. "I'm so glad you came over, Michi."

She raised an eyebrow. "Michi?"

"You know, like, a nickname. For Michiru. It's cute." She shrugged. "You can call me Ruka if you want. Mina does, sometimes."

Michiru averted her eyes from Haruka's. "I don't believe I've ever had a nickname, now that you mention it."

She slowly turned Michiru out for a spin, careful to keep her from the edge of the coffee table. "You're kidding me! Never?"

Michiru came back in, and, despite herself, rested her head on Haruka's shoulder. "No. No one has ever thought to give me one." She closed her eyes and imagined them swaying like this at the Met Ball. It was madness, of course, she could never take a girl like Haruka to a place like that. But the thought of Haruka in a tuxedo, guiding her around the floor, was enough of an escape to make her smile.

Haruka stopped, and Michiru looked up at her wordlessly, still caught in the moment of freedom from her own life, her own personality.

Haruka's voice as soft and low and warm. "I love you, Michiru."

Michiru's eyes widened, and she pulled away from Haruka's shoulder, dropped suddenly out of her dreamworld. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry at such a notion.

"You don't have to say it back. Really. I'll wait. I know you've been hurt, I can tell." Her eyes were honest and filled with hope as she gently took Michiru's hands in hers and touched them to her chest. Michiru could feel her heart beating under the cheap cotton of her shirt. "You can trust me. I'll show you. "

"Haruka, stop." Michiru pleaded, looking at Haruka's guileless smile. "I cannot…I am not—"

"Shhhh." She kissed Michiru's hand. "It's okay. I won't say nothing more about it, okay?"

Michiru pulled away from her and wandered toward the window, forgetting, for a moment, that there was little to stare at other than an alleyway and the building next door. Haruka's kindness was a torment, a trap. How could Haruka not see? Why was she so determined to lay Michiru bare to the world, to strip her of her every protection? What was the point of letting her see a world that she could never be a part of?

Michiru thought of the painting at home, the one with golds and oranges and bright reds. She had almost brought it for Haruka, to give her as a gift. She was the bright poppies and sunlight that exploded across the canvas. But it was weak work, her professor had said. Simple. Where were the layers of meaning he had seen in her previous work, where was the longing, where was the sense of hopelessness? She looked back over at Haruka, who smiled encouragingly as she stacked the plates on the table. Yes. Too simple.

"I made dessert!" Haruka chirped happily as she set the dishes in the sink. "It's a tart, there were some pears on sale so I thought I'd make one, it wasn't as hard as I thought!"

Michiru sighed thankfully for the change in subject, walked toward her bag and pulled out the wine she had brought. "That would pair wonderfully with the wine I brought."


	6. Still Wick

She rubbed a little bit of gold foil onto the canvas, right where the beam of sunlight fell onto the edge of the flower. Thick, strong black lines offset the oranges and corals, giving shape and suggestion to the flowers and their bright gobs of sunlight. The largest exploded from the side of the canvas, that bright mustard Haruka had picked up and dabbed on the end of her nose.

The sunlight fell on her face, and the joy of the light overwhelmed her as she detailed the painting. She forgot the words of her professor, who had thought this painting so simple. Something an enthusiastic soccer mom might hang in her living room, he'd said. She gulped down the coffee that sat next to her.

Flowers were a miracle, she thought. The ground was hard and unyielding but still they came up out of their seeds with no thought but to bring brightness to the world. Had her bulb ever bloomed, she thought, detailing the tulip? Maybe it had just been in hibernation all this time.

Haruka had said she loved her. She had expected nothing in return, not even the reply. It had frightened her. She had heard those words so little. And never that way…she could not describe it, not with every word she had available to her. It was the same way the sun hit her face now, almost as if by accident, without hope or agenda.

She dabbed a bit of red onto the end of her brush.

She had begged Haruka to stop. Not to love her. Not to give something she could never return. It had been too much, she could feel the bright green bud splitting her heart open, refusing to stay in its place. It sliced through carefully kept fences and pathways, it was forcing its way to the light.

Where everyone would see.

But as she lay in Haruka's arms this morning, only a few short days after that crack in the wall of her heart, she had found it more difficult to care. It was as if mere proximity to her made her want to break wide the dirt and burst open. The way she kissed Michiru's hand, the way she looked at her like she was truly good, it filled her with warmth and with strength. It wasn't as if she didn't have enough money in her trust fund alone to take care of both of them. Haruka could move in here, and she would get a room in an apartment for Mina, and all would be well. She could live quite happily.

A pall came over her face as she thought of her parents. What they would say to her. What they would say to Haruka. She could hardly believe in herself that she had anything in common with someone who mopped a floor and read ESPN magazine. But then love was not meant to make sense, was it? Love.

Yes, love, she thought, as she brushed the red detail upward into a slow blush on the gold tulip.

She sat back and assessed her work. Haruka would look on it so proudly. It was cheerful. Bright. Full of promise. She signed the bottom corner. Michi.

There was a knock at her door, and she slipped off her smock and hung it at the hook by the studio door, calling out to the sound.

"Who is it?" She washed her hands quickly, afraid she knew the answer before it ever came through the door.

"It's Mother and Father, Michiru. We heard you might be entering some pieces into the Marice Gallery show next month." The disembodied voice followed her as she checked her hair and makeup.

She opened the door where her parents stood, cool, restrained smiles on their faces.

"Michiru." Her mother spoke first. "You look tired, dear, are you not getting enough rest?"

Michiru walked toward the kitchen. "Between my studies with the violin and my side interests in art, I suppose something had to give."

Her father nodded sternly. "The director tells me you're doing well. You should audition for concertmaster as soon as you complete your master's."

Michiru set two cups of coffee in her machine, not even asking if they wanted any, knowing what they would say, knowing what the script always had to be. "Yes, I suppose that is the dream, isn't it?" They stood in silence as the machine slowly ground the beans and dripped the coffee into the two equal mugs.

Her mother took the first cup presented. "In any case, Tobi Marice told us you might be entering some pieces into her show. I told your father that we really should see what our little investment is doing." She laughed, as if it were joke.

Michiru nodded and led them to the studio. "I have several pieces I was thinking of entering." She stopped in front of a picture done in blue and greys, a slight trickle of red in the center of the shadows. "This is The Harvest. It's the first one Tobi saw, and I assume why she tapped me for inclusion in the gallery."

Her father appraised it coldly. "Ms. Marice has the eye for art, not me." He chuckled. "But it seems like the sort of thing your mother would buy."

"I was lunching with Rayna and the girls the other day, and we were just speaking about how your oeuvre has finally moved to something more mature. Remember all those paintings you used to do of, oh, what were they even, space whales? Back when you were in preparatory school?" He mother smiled and shook her head. "Silly."

She did remember. The bright points of light, the freedom of space, the sinuous lines of each whale. A giggling 15 year old imagining what it might be like to swim through space as she did in their rooftop pool, joined only by the stars.

"We never would have been able to sell those." Her father laughed.

Michiru wordlessly continued, moving on to another, banded with blue lines, sharp jagged peaks of black and grey and charcoal digging into the fading blue. "This is Pinnacle of Hope."

Her mother nodded. "Yes. Very good."

Her mother's eyes looked around the room and spotted the painting by the window. She raised an eyebrow. "Michiru, whatever is that? Did you paint that?"

Michiru stumbled for a moment over her own tongue, suddenly cursing the painting's presence. Why hasn't she hidden it?. "Just a dalliance."

She laughed. "I should hope so. My god, Michiru, it looks like something someone would hang in the bathroom of a Motel 6. Tulips? Oh, honestly."

Michiru crossed her arms and looked down at the floor. Silly.

Her father appraised the work. "Is this what they teach you at an Ivy League?"

"No Father, don't worry, my professor told me it was simplistic and shallow as well."

"Well good." Her mother added. "You are better than this, Michiru, this is doodling on napkins for you. You are so talented Michiru, you have a responsibility to reach the apex of your skills, not simply what feels good. The reason we've done so much for you children is so you can bring your talents to the world, what's next, marrying a garbageman and making apple crisp?" her mother shook her head. "I'd die first."

"Of course, Mother." Michiru tipped her face to the ceiling, studying it very hard.

Her father nodded. "Michiru, you have a name. And that name is important. I'm sure this," he waved his hand toward the painting, "Is fun for you, and all, but never forget who you are. Your fine life means you must make a fine example. We've taught you that."

"Yes." Michiru stood with her hands folded. "You have."

* * *

The night had fallen over the city. Michiru swallowed the white pills, chasing them with her glass of white wine. She walked into the studio, flicking on a dim lamp, following the small trail of light to her painting, the only light reflected off of it the gold foil sunlight illuminating the petal.

She took the thick brush in one hand, and covered the canvas with thick black paint.


	7. Aldonza

"You're the one who set us up, why are you acting like a little shit about this?"

Mina rolled her eyes and flopped dramatically against the stained beige upholstery of the rickety couch. "I didn't 'set you up,' Ruka. I asked her to go to a dinner with you. A one-time gig. I never thought it would go this far!"

"Why?!" The hurt was etched in her face. "Because someone like her could never be interested in a piece of trash like me?"

Mina pulled on the roots of her hair and growled. "You are not a piece of trash. She is! She doesn't deserve someone nice like you. I thought she wouldn't see you again. She's a bitch, she's a cold, rich, mean bitch, and she's going to hurt you so bad. So bad."

Haruka shook her head and smiled softly at Mina, putting her hand on her shoulder in her affectionate sisterly way. "Mina, no, it's not like that. She really cares about me." She shrugged and her smile grew wider. "I think she might even love me."

Mina's face fell. Her voice was subdued, and a little sad. "Oh, Haruka." She sighed heavily. "I don't think she knows how to love. I think she knows how to do coke, and be disaffected, and play her stupid violin. And speak French, which is how we got into this whole stupid mess, me and my big fucking mouth."

"You just don't know her. The real her."

Mina's temper flared. "She's a human! You're a mermaid!" She laid her hands on Haruka's shoulders. "I love you, you starry-eyed idiot. But. Rich people are not like us, Ruka. She has no idea what it's like to work, she has no idea what it's like to want, she spends her whole life playing a part, and you don't fit that! You never will! And she can't love you the way you are, because it's beyond her." Her eyes narrowed. "And not because there's anything wrong with you, so get that shit out of your head. You're a great person, and she'd be lucky to have you, but she'd rather have some gold-plated asshole who quotes Foucault."

Haruka pulled away from her. "You're wrong. She spends a lot of time with me, and she showed me her paintings, and she, she holds me, sometimes, when I stay."

"Yeah. She spends a lot of time with you. Alone. In her apartment. Where no one can see you."

Haruka was stilled by the accusation, unable to come up with a defense. "I love her."

"I know. It breaks my heart." Mina scooted closer to Haruka. "You're the last person on Earth I'd want to hurt. I'm sorry for getting you into this."

"No." Haruka's brow furrowed "She's not like that. Can't you ever just let me have something nice?"

Mina stood up. "Fine. Have it your way. Do me a fucking favor, though. Tomorrow, when you're in your little blue jumpsuit with your name lovingly embroidered on the tag, walk up to her when she's with her little friends. See what happens. If I'm wrong, I'll apologize to her stupid Crème de la Mer covered face."

"Fine!"

"Fine!" Mina stood in the tiny living room for a moment. "Okay, I'm storming off to your bedroom, I guess." She picked up her bag and slammed the door as hard as she could.

Haruka sighed, pulled down Mina's murphy bed from the wall, and closed her eyes, as the train passing by the apartment rocked her to sleep.

* * *

The beginning dullness of late fall should have been her first clue.

"Hey there!" She smiled the crooked smile Michiru loved so well. Michiru's eyes darted as she looked over at her friends. Haruka had never approached her on campus. She worked in the science building, what was she even doing here?

Jessica looked up at Haruka. "Oh, may we help you with something?"

Haruka drew back a touch. "Just—saying hi to Michiru. We—"

Our lives are decided by moments. Each word from our mouths is the switching of a track from one destination to the other, towards an unknown end. In this moment, all the possibilities of Michiru's life laid out in front of her, she discovered her own weakness =, laid bare before the world.

"I tutor her ward in French." Michiru interrupted. "Mina's doing very well, I expect she'll make very fine marks on the final. You should encourage her to study the superlative." She smiled her beauty queen smile. "It's wonderful for you to be so involved with her education."

Haruka stared down at the table and swallowed hard, shame coming to her face. "Yes. Uh, I'm glad she's doing good."

"Well." Ashley piped up. "You're glad she's doing well."

"Yeah." Haruka nodded. "Thanks." She scratched behind her ear and walked away quickly, shoulders slumped.

For the first time she could remember, Michiru felt guilty. It felt swallowing a fireball, burning her heart like a pig on a spit, shame dripping into the pit of her stomach and sizzling there. Her friends laughed, joking about how familiar staff could be at colleges.

"Well," Jessica put a hand to her cheek, playfully, "this wouldn't happen if you didn't tutor the charity cases."

Ashley shook her head. "You know we need service history if we're ever going to end up on any of the major boards. I'm sure Michiru's already aiming to get on the MET."

Their words came like voices underwater, loud and muffled all at once. Haruka had done nothing but show her kindness. Consideration. She never spoke of influences or movements when she looked at Michiru's paintings, never offered critique. She simply told her what she loved about each piece, gushed over her talent. It was the same with the violin, she showered Michiru with detailed appreciation, as if any violinist who would come after or who had come before was irrelevant. She saw Michiru. She remembered things about her, her favorite flowers, what movies she liked, the way she loved intricate patterns of light cast in shadows, lavishing on her in attention and care where others had thrown only wealth, was gentle where others were genteel.

She was the first real thing Michiru had ever had, and in an instant Michiru had traded her for the lie.

She casually asked Jessica if she had any Oxycontin to spare. She hadn't been calling her dealer lately.

* * *

Mina walked into the apartment and moved to hang up her jacket. She stopped for a moment. Haruka' jacket was hung up in its usual place, but it was only 4 o clock. She couldn't remember the last time Haruka had taken sick leave, she must be really…and then it hit her.

She knocked on Haruka's door. "Ruka? Can I come in?"

The reply was muffled. "Sure."

She opened the door to the darkened room and peeked in. Haruka lay on the bed, curled up on her side, facing the small window. The faded plaid blanket was pulled up to her chin, a single pillow resting under her head as she lay on top of the covers, her shoes not even removed.

Mina sighed. "I'm sorry, buddy."

"She acted like she didn't even know me."

Mina sat at the edge of the bed and put her hand on Haruka's shoulder. "I mean, I'm glad you found out now rather than later. I should kick her snooty ass." She kneaded her thumb into Haruka's shoulderblade.

Haruka propped herself up on her elbow, still looking at the wall. "You know, I go to that job every day, and I always think, 'You know, I'm part of what makes this whole thing possible, this great, historical institution.' But you know what? None of the kids there care. They don't even know my name."

"I care."

Haruka sighed and laid on her back, looking up at the ceiling. "I know. I'm being all dramatic. It just…hurt."

Mina sat cross-legged by her side. "I should have known." She put a hand on her chin and leaned forward. "I should have known when I made her go on that date with you."

Haruka stopped. "What?"

"I should have known."

Haruka sat up and looked straight at Mina. "You forced her to go on a date with me?"

"I mean, just, kinda?" Mina felt suddenly ill at ease.

Haruka leapt to her feet, throwing the blanket down on the ground. "You just told me you were gonna ask her!"

Mina geticulated wildly. "I did! Just with…incentive. I mean, she owed me a favor and I couldn't just squander it."

Haruka buried her face in her hands. "She never even wanted to go out with me, God, I'm such an idiot." She looked over at Mina, shaking her head. "How could you?" She pulled at her hair, bit her lip, and stormed out to the little living space, her face blushing with embarrassment and rage.

Mina followed after her. "I was just getting you a date! God, Haruka!"

Haruka whirled around and faced her, her voice loud and angry. "I have feelings, Mina! Didn't you think about how I'd feel, knowing she never liked me?"

Mina shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, you got to bang a rich hot chick, so—"

"I'm embarrassed!" Her voice echoed through the tiny apartment, her eyes filled with tears. "You set me up. Can't you see that? If I'd known she didn't want to go out with me…"

Mina shook her head. "It's not my fault Michiru's a bitch. I never asked you to fall in love with her. Listen—"

Mina was silenced by a yell of anger and frustration, Haruka's fist flying into the wall with a heavy thud. They stood in silence, Haruka cradling her hand, her eyes closed, a tear dripping down her cheek.

"Just stop." Her voice was calm now. "Stop." She picked up her coat and threw it on roughly, heading toward the door.

"Ruka—"

"Mina, do me a favor." She paused at the doorway. "Don't talk to me for a while."

Haruka skipped down the stairs quickly, pushing open the heavy door to the apartment building and heading out into the night. She walked hurriedly down the darkened streets, trying to escape from her anger and pain. Mina had blackmailed Michiru to even see her. Michiru had never considered Haruka anything at all. She'd been a toy, a plaything. And Mina. How could she? After all Haruka had tried to do, she'd treated her like she was a sitcom plot point, not a person. Mina, at least, should know better. She knew how sensitive Haruka was.

Ugh, it sickened her to say that. How sensitive she was. She hated that about herself, everything in the world felt so deep and so lasting, her nerves lying just below the surface. Happiness and sadness touched her heart equally, she relished in affection and kind words and all the things girls like her weren't supposed to need.

And she tried so hard to be deserving.

She broke into a run, her long legs carrying her down the block and further into the night, the steady pound of her heart and force of her breath clarifying her mind.

No. She was deserving. She worked hard, she was good at her job, she took care of herself and that tiny blonde ingrate. She was kind to others. She gave affection and kind words. She deserved them just as much as any other person. She deserved to be recognized. She deserved love.

She ran.

* * *

There was a knock at Michiru's door, and she looked up from the couch. A half-empty bottle of wine sat in front of her, a line of coke meted out for later, a spate of prescription drugs still running through her system. It had been a mortifying day, having Haruka approach her at school, and she deserved to unwind.

How embarrassing, to have Haruka think she could approach her like that at school. They hadn't discussed that. In her uniform, no less. A mop in hand. Had her friends known? Had they seen the shame and guilt In her face, and guessed as to her private longing? If Haruka had simply had more discretion, she would happily help her with expenses. Perhaps she would bring up such a thing to Haruka in a few days' time, once she had cooled off.

She might not even be mad. She might have realized the error of her ways.

Michiru walked toward the door, and opened it, not even looking up, expecting Haruka to be there, in her addled mind. This notion was quickly quelled by a swift blow to the face.

Michiru reeled back inside, pursued by a blonde whirl of fury. Mina grabbed her arm and pulled her back, Michiru shoving at her ineffectually and calling at her to stop. Mina threw her up against the wall, where she slid to the floor.

Mina stood in the middle of the room, scowling, and looked down at her hand. "Ow! God, punching someone in the face hurts."

Michiru delicately touched her cheek, already beginning to swell. She looked up at Mina angrily.

Mina leaned over her, pointing aggressively. "Tell me you don't deserve it. Tell me."

Michiru offered no argument in her defense, simply stood up and walked into the kitchen as Mina's eyes followed her. She pulled a wine glass out of the cabinet. "May I interest you in a glass?"

Mina dropped her fist, confused. "Is it poison?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Mina." She poured two glasses a handed her one. "Let us discuss my many sins."

Mina sat down on the couch, Michiru at the other end. They stared at each other for moment, silent.

Michiru sipped her wine. "Have you ever heard the legend of the frog and the scorpion?"

"No." Mina still stared at her glass, afraid to take a sip.

Michiru did not pause. "A scorpion once asked a frog to carry him across a river. The frog was frightened, saying that he was afraid the scorpion would sting him. The scorpion tells him not to be afraid—if he stings the frog, they will both drown. Thus assured, the frog agrees. They are halfway across the river when the scorpion stings the frog. Feeling the poison take over his body, the frog asks before he dies, 'Why would you do such a thing?'"

Michiru stopped to snort the line of cocaine, Mina still staring at her drink.

She leaned back onto the couch, and smiled coldly at Mina. "And the scorpion says, 'You knew what I was when we began. It is my nature.'"

"So you're saying Haruka's the frog?"

Michiru thought for a moment, her voice picking up speed. "No, perhaps you're right. It's an imperfect allegory. It would be as if you had placed the scorpion on the frog's back, knowing what it was."

Mina threw herself up from the couch. "Why is everyone trying to blame me for this?"

"Who blackmailed me into our first date? Who knew the intimate details of my very nature, and Haruka's, and still thought it wise?" She paused, a moment of realization coming over her. "Who talked Haruka into approaching me in the art building? You have been the engineer of your own nightmare, Mina. Of Haruka's nightmare."

"Yeah, you're totally innocent and blameless in this, you're not a repressed bitch at all." She slammed down the glass of wine.

"I am nothing other than what I have always been. Girls like me don't marry girls like Haruka." She shrugged. "It was doomed to come to a bad end." Her voice was faraway for a moment. "Just because Haruka believed I was something else, does not make it so."

"Girls like you don't deserve girls like Haruka. You're a fucking snake. A monster." She spat the words.

Michiru tipped her hand. "Perhaps." She crossed one leg over the other. "But isn't it funny how its everyone's fault but yours?"

Mina stormed out of the apartment, and Michiru set up another line.

* * *

Mina strolled slowly back home, her heart heavy. She would never have intentionally hurt Haruka. Haruka was all she had, all she'd ever had for years. But, she supposed, her intention didn't really matter in this case. She had deeply wounded Haruka.

It was at this moment that she began to remember why Haruka didn't date much. Too soft, too attached. She needed to be more like Mina, at least to Mina's mind. You don't have to think of moving in together with everyone you sleep with. She slowly tromped up the stairs to the apartment, a baby crying in one of the apartments next door, echoing througghhe hall.

She opened the door, tossing her keys on the table. Haruka sat on the couch, the TV playing an old movie about love and Nazis or something in that vein. Mina had no time for them, but Haruka loved those schlocky old pieces of work.

Haruka turned to face her, swinging her arm over the couch. "Mina, I'm sorry if I scared you, I'd never hit you or anything, I just got so upset—"

"Oh God, I know you wouldn't hit me, you big dork." She rolled her eyes and flopped down on the couch next to her. Haruka's knuckles were bandaged, her hand set gingerly in her lap. "You hurt yourself bad?"

Haruka shook her head. "Only what I'm owed."

Mina fiddled with her shoelace. "Ruka, I need to apologize to you." She sighed heavily. "I shouldn't have done that."

Haruka stared at the TV. "I wouldn't have gone out with her if I'd known, you know."

"I know." She set her hand on Haruka's knee. "I was trying to do something nice for you. And, probably," She leaned back on the couch, defeated. "I wanted to think about snobby little Michiru out on the town with you."

"I'm not a punishment, Mina." Her voice was flat.

"I know. I am a world-class shit. It's okay if you're mad at me forever. Seems reasonable."

Haruka looked down at her hand, running her finger over her knuckles. "Not forever. Maybe just the rest of our lives."

Mina laughed darkly. "That's fine."

They sat watching the silver and grey of the film for a few moments before Mina interrupted again.

"I do love you, Haruka."

Haruka patted her arm. "I know. You're just a dipshit." She looked at Mina's hand. "You punch a wall too?"

"May as well have been."

The next day, Mina quietly dropped her French tutor.


	8. There is a Crack in Everything

Michiru did, in some ways, feel what she imagined to be guilt. Never mind that Haruka should have more decorum than to approach her in front of her peers—my God, what if her parents had been there? And never mind that Mina had orchestrated the entire disaster. No, despite the fact that, as she saw it, it was her fault least of all, she felt a certain amount of discomfort at how things had ended between herself and Haruka.

Some of this discomfort likely dwelled in the fact that Haruka's body had been warm and responsive in a way she had never known. She was disarming in her freshness, her honesty. She did not know enough to be coy, to protect herself.

Which, again, the fault for that could scarcely be laid at Michiru's feet.

But Michiru wanted to set this to rights, in some small way, and she knew exactly how. Their apartment was a tiny, dilapidated little place. She would simply offer to assist them in getting a better one. Buy Haruka some clothes. Maybe even give a little money for Mina's use. It could be an arrangement—Her father had done no less with his mistresses—it had been silly of Michiru to expect Haruka to be giving the milk away for free, she supposed. Haruka would be so grateful. She would understand.

She would return to Michiru's bed.

She worked the whole thing out with her financial advisor under the guise of needing a place for visiting musicians. It was rather modest, by her family's standards—one small bathroom and no view or rooftop deck, but it would remove the commute for both Haruka and Mina, and it had two bedrooms. Her family would hardly miss the two thousand and some a month.

She printed off pictures of the apartment, sure that Haruka would be impressed even by the laminate floor.

Her innocence had always been so refreshing.

* * *

"Haruka."

She turned at the voice, sure she must have heard wrong. But no, there she was, standing in the humble breakroom where Haruka's locker tightly held her belongings as she swept up the campus. Haruka nearly forgot she had her jumpsuit unsnapped to the waist, only a cheap white t-shirt between Michiru and her body. That was, until she noticed Michiru looking, and her smile, and, blushing, pulled her sweater over the top.

"Hi." She looked back into her locker, panicking momentarily when she remembered she needed to get back into her pants without undressing in front of Michiru. "I don't think students are supposed to be in here."

"Oh, I go wherever I like." She smiled and leaned against the lockers, Haruka trying to avoid the power of her gaze.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Haruka tried to keep the still-fresh hurt out of her voice, and failed. "Anyway." She took her jeans out of the locker and moved to shut it. She'd just change in the bathroom.

Michiru stepped out in front of her. "Haruka, I believe we ended things on bad terms." Haruka looked at her sideways, her eyes betraying a faint glimmer of hope. "I owe you an apology."

Haruka allowed herself a small smile. "Yeah?" Her body turned unconsciously toward Michiru. "I mean," She ruffled her hair absent-mindedly. "Everyone screws up." She looked back at Michiru, who was nodding softly. Mina had been so wrong, Haruka knew she would feel bad eventually. She couldn't wait to tell her. "I do too."

"Yes, you made a misstep." Michiru sat down at one of the tables, sweeping it off with a mild look of disapproval. "But, I, also, have been devaluing you and your contributions to my life."

Haruka grinned and sat down across from her, folding her jeans on her lap. This had be her fault, too, she reasoned. She should have let Michiru introduce her to her friends when she was dressed nicer. They probably thought Haruka was unkempt, and Haruka didn't want them to think that. She cleaned up real nice, all her friends said so.

She grabbed Michiru's hand across the table. "I'll do better. We can do better."

Michiru shuffled the papers and pushed them across to Haruka. "I was certain you'd see it that way. I took the liberty of finding an apartment for the two of you."

Haruka examined the papers. "Michiru, I can't afford this."

"Well, of course not, I intend to pay for it myself."

Haruka shook her head. "I can't accept that, it's too much. You don't need to give me things, anyways. We're okay where we're at."

Michiru inclined her head. "Now, now, Haruka. Don't be proud. It's not even really a gift. It's a consideration, for your many services."

Haruka chuckled. "I mean–"

"And your discretion."

The word hit her deep in her gut, and she visibly recoiled from Michiru's hand. "You still want me to be a secret." She'd been wrong again, she was always wrong.

Michiru sighed. "Not a secret. Rather, a…oh, I don't know…private label of my own enjoyment." She laughed at her own joke, but Haruka frowned.

And pushed away from the table. "I wanted you to love me."

"I am very fond of you, Haruka, more than I have ever been of anyone–"

Haruka just kept shaking her head, giving herself the small scrap of her own pride, whatever was left.

Michiru crossed her arms, affronted that Haruka would play games with her. "I am offering you an excellent life, Haruka. Things you could never afford yourself, I will give you. Vacations, a place to live, fine meals. I'm only asking one thing from you."

Haruka stood up, her brow furrowed. "No. I deserve better."

"You cannot possibly do better." Michiru would later wonder why she had argued so about something she thought of very casually, why it was so important that Haruka return to her. "I can easily find someone else, you know." She nearly believed herself when she said it. "You are not a terribly rare kind."

Haruka looked hurt, but shook her head firmly. "Then you'll have to find them."

* * *

"I can't believe you passed up us getting a new apartment!" Mina's voice echoed through the house. "I mean, as much as I love my bedroom slash living room slash dining room, I could go for a space of my own. Near campus!"

Haruka looked at her with an exhausted sadness.

"I know, I know, she hurt your gay feelings when she gay rejected you and then tried to gay buy you off. BUT YOU COULD HAVE BEEN A KEPT WOMAN. More importantly, I could have been like, your purse dog. Dress me up, feed me steak."

Haruka took a sip of her beer and looked off as if she could see through the wall. "Mina, do you think someone'll ever love me?"

Mina immediately dropped her feigned abhorrence. "Ruka, you know I'm teasing you, right? Trying to lighten the mood. I'm proud of you. Michiru's a sarlacc pit of a human being. I tried to tell you that. It has nothing to do with you."

Haruka peeled the label off the beer bottle. "I'm so stupid."

"No, you're not." She threw a comforting arm over Haruka's shoulder. "Okay, like, maybe, just, you know, a little. But in a very trusting and charming way! You know what your problem is?"

Haruka lolled her head back onto the couch. "I bet you're about to tell me."

"You think people are like you." She buried her finger into Haruka's chest. "They're not, Haruka. You're honest, and you try to be nice, and you have this way of dedicating yourself to an ideal." She shook her head. "Most people aren't like that at all."

"You are." She glanced over at Mina.

"No, I'm not. See, here we go, I'm a manipulative shitheel, but because you love me, you can't see that. You get these big googoo eyes about anyone you love, Haruka, and it's stupid."

She closed her eyes again. "Sorry."

"No, it's just—" She sighed heavily. "You get hurt. I hate that." She squeezed Haruka's shoulder. "And in answer to your earlier question, someday you are gonna meet a girl who thinks you're everything, and you're gonna thinks she's everything, and I'm gonna have to move out because it's gonna be nothing but a huge disgusting lesbian feelings pool in here."

Haruka smiled softly. "You think?"

"I think if this situation has taught us anything, it's that I'm right about everything."

Haruka chuckled. 'Yeah, that's definitely my takeaway."

"Also, I think I should stop screwing around in your love life." It was not quite a confession of wrongdoing, but there was a certain amount of regret in her eyes. "Leave you to your own devices." She laughed. "As it turns out I may not be the world's best matchmaker."

"I know you didn't mean it to turn out how it did," she set down the bottle on the coffee table, "But yeah, I think I'll take it from here."

"I'm still gonna dress you for dates, though, 'cause God knows you need the help."

"Mina."

* * *

Michiru did not understand the hollowness inside her, did not know how to mend it, and wandered forward and back through her cavernous apartment. Her life was precisely as it had been before, and in that time, it had seemed a pleasant enough life. But haruka had chipped out part of the wall that protected her, that kept cold and dead but utterly safe, and now the champagne sat flat, her Louboutins strewn across the floor, and she was near enraged at how her mind turned to Haruka. The genuine hurt etched across her brow. The resolute strength of her refusal.

Michiru was not used to being refused, and she had never known the pain of want. There were things, it seemed, that not even she could afford.

She tossed the oranges and golds and reds into the garbage, resolving to never use them again.

But she left the black canvas in the corner.

Fall gave way to the chill of winter, which receded in kind to the will of spring. It was the last semester before Michiru would graduate. Her senior show was in the gallery, her parents were delighted about her placement within her class, and her girlfriend, from a highly regarded social family, was interning to be an investment banker. Everything was blooming for Michiru Kaioh.

And yet, in the midst of the spring, she felt empty.

She could not define the cause—maybe there was something to be said for the idea that a major change in life was draining. She had always attended school, and soon, she wouldn't be. That was reason enough, really.

And the emptiness did not feel so foreign to her. She had been raised to be a perfect vessel, like one she might have seen in a museum. Perfect and delicate and under a spotlight, never to be touched or filled. She knew this was the way she was meant to be. And so, she paid it little mind.

She crossed campus one evening, the sun just beginning to dip below the horizon and painting the world with those oranges and reds and pinks and golds that she had tossed away to be forgotten. She ignored most of the simple hoi polloi that milled about on campus, and always had. She was made to be watched, and not to watch.

But on this particular day, something caught her eye.

Haruka. Michiru had mostly forgotten about her, she told herself as she lay in bed at night, but here she was, lounging on the grass. She must have just finished her shift. She struck a contrast against the freshly green grass, a burgundy flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled to her elbow in her workman's way, tucked haphazardly into her thick brown corduroys. The gold of her hair caught the final rays of the sun and shone like treasure.

Her smile was bright. She laughed. Michiru's eyes panned upwards, somehow already knowing what she would find at the end of Haruka's smile. Her dress was cheap, printed with flowers in some tawdry pattern. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. She sat down next to Haruka, rubbed her chest, and kissed her softly.

Michiru did not even realize that she had stopped to stare until someone nearly ran into her.

She tugged at the edge of her cardigan sweater and began to storm toward her apartment. Untoward behavior, to be doing that on campus. What if she had been dating a student? That certainly could not be permissible under any version of the employee handbook. Well, she had been dating Michiru, hadn't she? It might be worth the minor social guffaw, to see Haruka rightly punished for stepping out of turn, to see her lose her position. That would fix her, now wouldn't it? Her income, Mina's tuition grant, all of it gone in an instant. Who would be proud then?

She jammed the key into her door and slammed it behind her. Yes, that was what she would do. This foolish girl. She was doing her a favor, really. She could find janitorial work elsewhere. She was protecting the student body.

She almost believed herself as she washed down a few pills with her nightly glass of wine.

* * *

Fate has a way of intervening, and in this particular instance, fate reunited Michiru with a young blonde.

Mina nearly pushed her over in the hallway, though she immediately was pleased at the accident, and the way it threw Michiru off her game.

"You're pardoned, Mina." She stuck her nose back in the air as she reshuffled her things.

"Oh, I was so worried." Mina rolled her eyes and went to leave, but Michiru called after her, unable to contain her wrathful glee.

"I do so hope you've enjoyed your time at this institution."

Mina turned around slowly and faced her, scowling. "Don't think I didn't notice the goddamn threat in that."

"It truly is a shame that the university disallows relations between students and staff."

Mina was unable to hide the shock of realization in her eyes. She thought for a second, breathing hard, and then narrowed her eyes at Michiru. "You know that rule is meant for professors. You know that. This won't ever stand."

"Oh," she flipped her hair, "It absolutely will. My family name is on the west hall, you know. Checkmate, I suppose."

Mina shook her head, her voice softer now. "Michiru, that'll take everything from us. This isn't a game. How can you? I mean, you can find someone else to date, why ruin our lives?"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, this will hardly ruin your life, she'll find another position." She shrugged. "In any case, you have no one to blame but yourself for this turn of events.

"No, Michiru." Her voice was serious. "Fuck all, I used to think you were a real bitch, but it's worse than that. You have no fucking idea. You don't know what it's like to be a person, to be real. You are totally and completely empty, and no amount of money can fix that. Haruka's in love with a girl, who treats her like a person, and has real feelings for her. " She looked Michiru dead in the eye. "I wonder if you'll ever know what that feels like, to be loved for who you are. But you've got a name, and a hall, and I guess that's enough, isn't it? It's a little like love." She walked away. "But it isn't, Michiru. And you'll never be able to buy what she has."

Michiru felt a hole open up in her stomach, and her very soul slide through it like a sword through her belly.

She didn't feel like going to the administrator's office anymore.

* * *

She stood at the door of her studio, tears falling now. She couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Could only hate what Mina had said, and how true it was, and how she was a monster.

That black canvas was still in the corner. She remembered what was underneath it, resented it for existing, for making her believe that there was ever light. What good was it for Haruka, that cruel, terrible Haruka, to show a monster like her the joys of heaven? A creature like her that could only crawl on her belly, that people would hate and despise and tolerate only because they feared her?

She choked out an open sob. How long had it been she she really cried? She must have been a child. Her family would call it pathetic. Weak.

She looked angrily at the black painting in the corner, and lumbered toward it. She picked up and exacto knife, tears still clouding her vision.

She sliced the canvas from the frame, letting it fall in strips to the floor.


	9. And I Shall Make Thee Beds of Roses

She didn't want to be cleaning the music hall, but neither could she think of a good reason to tell his coworker he should go ahead and miss his daughter's birthday party.

She could just keep her head down. It wasn't as if Michiru would speak to her anyhow, even if she did see her, even if she did notice her. She probably wouldn't even notice. Haruka steeled her heart against the thought. She wouldn't notice because Haruka was just the help, and she didn't see them as people, and her conduct with Haruka had pretty well proven that. Being mad at her was the right choice, the only choice.

She mopped the floor emphatically.

Mina had been so mad when Haruka told her she felt bad for Michiru. _She's not 'lost' Haruka. She's a terrible person._

But Haruka couldn't help but think that there was something in Michiru's eyes, just like in hers. The loneliness of a child who never got enough affection, who desperately wanted it. And Haruka had been luckier than Michiru, she reasoned, having found Mina and dedicating herself to making sure she got ahead and now they had a little family and Haruka wasn't lonely anymore. Michiru never got that.

Mina had just rolled her eyes at the suggestion.

And she was right, probably. Mina was a lot smarter than she was. She'd been right about Michiru not really loving her.

The thought still stung, even as happy as she was now.

She smiled as she thought of her girlfriend. Beautiful and happy, she held Haruka tight and whispered how much she loved her and packed her little lunches when she slept over. They went to Target and bought Haruka sweaters and she'd even gotten a gold one with little pink whales on for herself. Haruka liked it so much.

She wrung out the mop and started back to the locker room of the music hall. It wasn't her normal building, not her normal people, and so it felt a little odd as she strolled in to the break room, where a string bean of a new hire sat around a table and picked at a violin case with a pair of pliers.

"She's a bitch anyway." He poked at the lock. "I could sell this thing for a million dollars if I can just get into it. We've gotta," His face twisted in a grimace as the lock evaded him again, "wrest power from the oligarchy by any means necessary."

A grey haired man with a full mustache sat across from him, placid as he watched his young coworker. "I mean, I appreciate the Marxist philosophy here, but I don't think stealing a rich girl's violin is the way to unseat the nation."

"Well, at least I could buy a better class of lunchmeat."

Haruka walked over to the table. "You're gonna get fired."

"Oh," The grey-haired man took a sip of his coffee. "He'll never get into it."

"Yes I will!"

Haruka looked down at the bulletproof case. The small tag was done in such a shade of teal that she didn't even need to read the name. "Did you take it?"

"She left it." He threw down the pliers in disgust. "A million dollar violin, just sitting there."

"That's not the—" She stopped herself. Why would she know that Michiru never took her performance violin to class, just a hand-built violin her parents had bought her as a practice instrument? It could only be worth several hundred thousand."….thing you should be doing," she exited from the sentence gracelessly, "I mean, where are you gonna sell it? Pawn shop's not gonna give you shit for it."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Guess I'll just take it to the lost and found."

"I'll take it." She casually offered. "I gotta go by there on my way out anyways."

* * *

It was a dumb idea. Most of her ideas were, she thought.

She adjusted her sweater nervously as she walked up to the apartment building with the violin in hand. She hadn't felt right leaving it, even as much as she'd teased that kid, somebody would steal it and sell it, and it was Michiru's violin, that wasn't right. That she could buy another without a second thought was irrelevant.

But she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to Michiru again. To feel small.

She punched in the code at the front door—Haruka had a good memory for motion, Michiru really should be more careful when she's doing these things. That their apartment building had no lock at all didn't occur to her. What in the building would people possibly want to steal?

She slowly made her way up the stairs. It was a neat building, a converted factory, like a lot of the rich people like to live in, wide and open and full of real brick. The wrought iron was heavy and dark, curling into whispered secrets in a language only the night knew. Like Michiru herself, it was beautiful and offputting, a delicate strangeness about it.

The light was glowing under her door, and Haruka held her breath as she knocked. She would just shove the violin into her hands and go. She wouldn't even let her talk. She'd go home, and have some of that cake Tani made for her, and maybe watch a movie. Maybe Tani'd come over and they could cuddle.

But she was forced to let the breath out as the wait for an answer grew longer and longer. She knocked again, harder. Michiru must be in her studio, painting. Sometimes she could get lost in it, in the way the colors blended together and the feel of the paintbrush. It had been fun to watch, it was the only time she saw her guard drop even slightly, that she knew something else was in there, something quiet and yearning and lonely.

Still nothing.

"Michiru?" Her voice was too muffled, but the words had barely come out in the first place. She knocked again, her voice regaining strength. "Michiru, I have your violin. You left it at the school."

For a moment, Haruka considered simply leaving it there. She'd find it in the morning. Everything would be fine.

Haruka had never been the kind of person people would have described as intuitive. She had all the untapped psychic ability of a pile of bricks, by Mina's teasing and her own admission. And yet she couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong of her to go. That there was a reason she was standing here in the dark, and that it was deeply important she hand the violin to Michiru herself.

It was a dumb idea. Most of her ideas were.

But still she knocked again. "Michiru? Just answer the door, we don't even have to talk." She paused. "I don't even really want to talk."

Against her better judgement, she slowly turned the knob. It yielded easily to her touch, only a slight creak as the door swung open into the apartment.

The TV was on but appeared unwatched, two empty bottles of wine on the counter, and the charred remains of what must have been an attempt at making a grilled cheese sandwich. Michiru's coat lay on the floor, crumpled into a pile. Haruka set down the violin at the doorway, and shut the door behind her, the sound of it echoing through the cavernous apartment.

"Michiru?" She sounded like a scared child. "Are you here?"

She walked slowly toward Michiru's studio, dark and dim. She flipped on a light and poked her head in, unsure of what she wanted to see.

Every painting had been gashed through, strips of color littering the floor like a ticker-tape parade, her paints coalesced into one puddle in a large garbage can, her brushes broken in half and scattered on the floor.

"No, Michi," She bent down to touch a strip of a painting, one of her favorites, the one with a goldfish that looked like it was swimming, even as a still frame. "These were so beautiful."

She turned toward the living room sadly, and as her eyes rose to the end of the room, she saw her.

Lying on the ground, her arm stretched out over her head, teal curls tumbling forward onto the patterned area rug. Spiritless and pooling as her paints.

Haruka had not run hurdles in many years, and yet she cleared the chair easily as she dove to Michiru's side.

"Michiru!" She shook her shoulder indelicately, but there was no reply. "Michiru!"

The coffee table held a half-drank glass of wine and a spilled bottle of confetti-colored pills. Haruka looked over at it despairingly.

"Michiru, I told you this stuff was gonna hurt you!" She brushed the hair away from Michiru's face. She was still breathing, but only just. Haruka rand a hand through her hair, unsure of what to do. "Oh god, Michiru."

She scooped her up into her arms and ran toward the bathroom, starting up the large shower with cool water. Was this what you were meant to do? Haruka wasn't sure. She rubbed Michiru's shoulders aggressively. "Michiru, please, please wake up." She flicked some cool water on her face. "Please don't do this."

Haruka dug her cell phone out of her pocket and pressed it to her ear. "Please, you need to hurry! She took something, I don't know what, but it was too much." She looked down at Michiru's milk-pale face, her breathing seemingly even slower now. "Michiru, come on, please don't do this." She jiggled her in her arms as if comforting an ill child. "It can't be that bad, c'mon."

She splashed a little more water on her face. "You need to come now! I think she's dying."

The drone of the shower faded into white noise as Haruka waited.

* * *

It had been monumentally embarrassing, and she was quite certain her family would never recover from the shame, which was, in itself, a bit of a comfort.

Of course it had been unintentional, she explained, simply too many long nights and she had tried a shortcut to get some sleep—ill-advised, really, but you know, the inexperience of youth and all. Haruka had not been wise enough to hide the evidence before assisting her. She knew so little of society.

Everyone believed her. What could she possibly have to be upset about? She was a top violinist, she was beautiful and wealthy, and could expect to marry well.

And besides, it was true. She hadn't been meaning to die. She hadn't _not_ been meaning to die either, but that was hardly a part of the question.

She wasn't even sure why Haruka had saved her. If she had seen Haruka lying stabbed in the street, she very likely would have moved right along as she bled into the gutter. But yes, she did know the answer.

Haruka was good.

Good in a way that had always confused her, in a way that was absolutely without artifice or agenda. Good in a way that frightened her, and, the longer she sat in this hospital room, inspired her. She wanted to rest in that light, to bask in its warmth, and suddenly it no longer mattered what her family would think, or her friends, she simply longed to be near Haruka for always.

She could grow in the light of her love.

Clearly she had done some damage during this whole incident, she thought mockingly, but there was a smile on her face still. Haruka would come to visit her, of course she would, and when she did, Michiru would tell her, tell her everything, and she would paint again, in rich, bold, brave tones, with Haruka at her side.

As if on cue, there was a knock at her door. Hidden behind a small bouquet of cheap flowers, tied with a teal ribbon, was Haruka. "Can I come in?"

Michiru smoothed her hair unconsciously. "Why of course, you are my savior after all."

"Naw, I just…showed up." She tucked the bouquet against the others in the corner, small and sparse next to the floral-laden vases. "Heh. Guess I should have brought something else."

"No," Michiru shook her head, "The new addition is my favorite."

"I'm glad you're okay." Haruka looked over at her tenderly, as if she were an abandoned baby rabbit.

"Haruka, we must talk." She patted the bed next to her. "Come sit."

Haruka owed her nothing, and had promised her no allegiance, but still she came and sat next to her on the bed.

"Haruka, I've made a terrible mistake." She placed her hand on hers, but looked away. "You must forgive me, I've lived in this world for so long I scarcely realize that there is anything outside of it. This is all so new and frightening to me. I am as a child who has spent her who life indoors, shirking at the sunshine."

"It's okay." She wasn't sure what all of that meant, but it sounded apologetic.

"No. It's far from." She looked back at Haruka. 'I have treated you so cruelly, and I regret nothing else more. And yet, here you are, even still. You are like nothing I've ever encountered." She took Haruka's chin in her fingers and looked right into her eyes. "I love you, Haruka. I do. It's terrifying and exhilarating."

"Uh, I."

"Come live with me, and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove. Haruka, I will treat you to all the wondrous things of the world, and I will take you with me in every avenue. I will never be ashamed. I promise all these things to you, and Mina, I promise to tolerate her and treat her to fine things as well. Meals and clothes and vacations and even her schooling."

"Michiru, you don't gotta give me—"

"I know, I know, I simply long to treat you." She sat up straight,, and clutched haruka's hands, smiling. "I will kiss you and love you and show you around to every human being I have ever met. If these delights thy mind may move, then live with me, and be my love." She smiled sweetly at the learned verse.

"Michiru, I'm in love with someone else. You're really pretty, and great!" She took a hand to her shoulder, trying to comfort Michiru's crestfallen face. "But I…Tani and I are really happy. I can't just, we had our thing."

Michiru smiled sadly. "Of course." She nodded. "I understand." She took a deep breath. "This is my error." She squeezed Haruka's hand. "I want you to be overwhelmingly happy." She was surprised to find it was true.

"Michiru?" There was a knock at the door. Her parents stood, as imposing as ever, and it was as if a thin sheet of ice had settled over the room.

Michiru sat up straight. "Mother, Father, this is Haruka. Haruka, these are my parents."

Haruka stood up and shook their hands, and her father appraised her. "Of course! This is the young lady who did so much for us. How charming."

Haruka smiled and rubbed the back of her neck. "It wasn't really—"

"Nonsense." He drew out a checkbook. "We owe you a debt." He wrote down a sum, and her mother peeked over his shoulder.

"Oh, Ken, more than that, don't be miserly."

He sighed, but wrote out another check, presenting it to Haruka. "With our gratitude for your assistance. And discretion."

Discretion. She hated the word. Haruka looked down at the check. Two hundred thousand dollars. She took in a sharp breath. "This is too—no, I mean, thank you." She put it in her pocket, but looked sadly up at Michiru. No wonder she thought she could buy people's lives. "I'm so sorry, Michiru," and she slipped out of the hospital disappearing for the last time from Michiru's doorway.

Michiru knew exactly what she was apologizing for.

And yet, even without Haruka's sunshine, she would find a way to grow. She would find her own.


	10. The Patina of Time--Epilogue

The colors were bright and practically exploded across the canvas with mirth. Haruka loved to look at them, they felt alive and filled with joy. The flowers bloomed across the canvas, fish somehow swimming through the grass. This was her favorite exhibit so far, and that put her in mind of the soreness of her body.

"Hey," She called softly to her daughter, who walked over, a toddler balanced on her shoulder. "I gotta sit down awhile, my joints are killing me."

"Are you okay, Pop?" She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, concerned.

"Fine, fine, just old." She laughed. "I like the pictures in here, so I figured it'd be as good a place as any." She eyed a plush chair, unoccupied in the corner, "and that has my name on it."

She kissed her Papa on the cheek, "Come get you in twenty minutes?"

"Sounds great."

She limped over to the chair and sank into it, sighing contently as she stretched her leg out straight in front of her. It was a cheerful place to be—she'd always loved the art museum anyway, even if she didn't quite have the vocabulary to discuss it with people—but this room was a visiting artist's, and she found herself a bit sad that it wouldn't always be there.

She almost missed it. Just barely on the edge of her vision, a motion she recognized from long ago. But there was no way it could be. It had been, what now? 30-odd years? Coming up on 40, my god.

But it had to be, her heart insisted, and so her voice called out, too loud for the venue. "Michiru? Michiru Kaioh?"

She turned and her smile was immediate as she recognized Haruka. She clipped quickly across the floor of the space. "Haruka? Can it really be? My lord, it's been ages."

Haruka moved to stand, pushing herself slowly out of the chair, but Michiru sat on the cushioned bench next to her in one swift motion and took her elbow delicately. "No, please sit." She moved on quickly to spare Haruka explanation. 'Whatever are you doing here?"

"I love the art museum!" She smiled, leaning back and folding her hands in her lap. 'I have a pass here, you know. Ever since I retired, I gotta have something to do."

Michiru crossed one leg over the other and smiled. "So young, even."

"Well, t's only been a few months, you know, you work for the college 30 years and you get a pension. Mina covers the rest, she's a big deal now," she inclined her head to Michiru, as if she were unsure of whether to mention it or not, "The money you folks gave me paid for her school, you know. And now she's married and everything."

She passed by the memory of that day in the hospital room. "I have seen that. She wrote a book, I believe?"

"Yeah but," she waved a hand, "I don't believe all that psychobabble. But it pays the bills, and I don't have to work, so I guess I don't hate it. That was the deal, I'd take care of her until she could take care of me."

"Well, it seems to have worked well."

"I think," She chuckled, "I may have gotten the raw end of the deal. My body's beat to shit anymore, which is why I'm sitting here by myself."

Michiru touched her arm. "I'm so grateful for your misfortune."

"And you? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, well." She leaned in toward Haruka, "You see, this is my exhibit."

Haruka looked around. The fish. The flowers. Of course it was hers. "This is what I get for not reading." She shifted in the chair and looked over at Michiru. "They're beautiful. That's why I decided to sit here, you know."

Michiru teasingly smacked her shoulder. "Don't flatter me, we're far too old."

"No, really! Ask my kid, when she comes back."

Michiru unconsciously straightened her skirt. "Ah, you've had children?"

Haruka dug out her wallet. "Three. And I'm starting to get grandchildren, too!" She pulled out a few pictures, "Aren't they cute?"

She studied the picture carefully. "Lovely. Just precious," She handed it back to Haruka, who tucked it safely in her wallet. "And Tani?"

Haruka's smile faded. "She died about five years ago. Drunk driver."

"Oh Haruka, I'm so sorry."

"We had a good life." She nodded. "You?"

"No, I never married." She felt a little embarrassed to be admitting it, though she wasn't sure why. "Never found anyone."

"Well, more loss to them, not finding you." She smiled kindly. "I wasn't sure you'd recognize me, after all these years."

She gazed kindly at Haruka's faded gold hair, the smile lines forming around her eyes, and the slightly swollen joints in her hands. And then at her smile, and the way her patterned green cardigan half-hung off her shoulder, and how she slumped in a chair. She had thought of those things for years, in the quiet moments of her life. "No, I believe it would be impossible for me to mistake you anywhere. Though I must look a fright."

"Oh no, you're beautiful. You always were. Beauty like yours doesn't fade." She indicated around the room. "Besides, who cares? Look at this exhibit!" Her excitability was, always, catching.

"Yes, I've been so lucky."

Haruka waved across the room, her family at the doorway.

"I suppose I shouldn't keep you." Michiru took her bag off the bench.

"Naw, come on and meet them!"

 _And tell them what, Haruka, that I was the girl who mistreated you horrendously and drove you into the arms of their mother? I don't even know that girl anymore._ "Oh, I couldn't possibly." She stood up, but looked back at Haruka, steeling herself. "I have to go to a reception for this exhibit tonight, and I, well this is so embarrassing, I find myself without a date. Someone to accompany me, rather." She took a breath, as if she needed to blow out all the words in seconds. "I know it will be frightfully boring, but the cuisine is often good, and the wine is free, and it's been so long since I've seen you, I thought it might be a chance to catch up. If you'd like." She quickly extended her card to Haruka.

Haruka leaned forward and smiled, taking the card. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"Well, of course, it doesn't have to be, no, just, catching up." She blushed, and Haruka found the effect pleasing. She'd never seen it before.

"Well then, it's a date. A second first date, kinda." She laughed and winked at Michiru.

Michiru smiled full, her eyes crinkling in the sun


End file.
